EKITI YOUTHS, DO YOU HAVE TO TAKE THIS CAR WASH, SALES BOY, ADEOYE ARIBASOYE SERIOUS?
By Yemi Olajutemu
Ado Ekiti
The Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, Adeoye Aribasoye, had just finished what had become his familiar marathon speech. For nearly an hour, he had occupied the podium at the Main Auditorium of the Obafemi Awolowo Civic Center, Ado Ekiti, speaking to a gathering of young people, political leaders, civil society actors and other stakeholders who had assembled for the 2026 Ekiti Youth Summit and Presentation of Awards organised by the National Youth Council of Nigeria, NYCN.
From where I sat, the end of the speech seemed to be taking forever. Every few minutes, I peeped through the auditorium door, hoping to catch the moment when Aribasoye would finally step down from the podium. I had come with a simple assignment: secure what I imagined would be a three minute interview with the Speaker.
I knew, however, that three minutes with Adeoye Aribasoye was an ambitious calculation. Any journalist who has interviewed him, particularly for broadcast, understands the problem. Aribasoye does not simply answer questions. He explains them. He contextualises them. He provides examples. He reaches into history, politics and personal experience, often before returning to the original question.
Before long, three minutes can become ten. Ten can become twenty. And by the time you realise what has happened, the broadcast editor is already wondering how a thirty second actuality has suddenly become a ten minute interview. This afternoon, the Speaker appeared determined to prove that very point.
He stood on the podium dressed more like a young man attending a youth gathering than a senior politician presiding over a state legislature. He wore a long sleeved round neck top, jeans and canvas shoes. There was something deliberately youthful about his appearance, almost as if he had decided that the occasion demanded that the Speaker temporarily disappear and the young activist in him should take centre stage.
For me, I was also looking for something else. Only recently, Aribasoye had posted a photograph and a video on Facebook showing strands of grey hair on his head. I wanted to see the grey hair in person. I knew he was less than Fifty years in age, so why the so much grey hair? Perhaps he had already trimmed it or the photograph and the video had exaggerated its appearance, whatever grey had been visible online was not obvious from where I stood.
Then came the speech. Much of what he said was familiar to me. I had listened to Aribasoye speak several times. As usual, he spoke about the achievements of the administration of Governor Biodun Oyebanji in youth development. He discussed the role of the legislature in supporting young people and spoke about the responsibility of government to create opportunities for the younger generation.
I could almost predict some of the things he would say. But somewhere between the familiar political narrative and the expected rhetoric of a government event, something else began to emerge. And that was the story that interested me.
THE BOY WHO LEFT HOME AT 17
For all the political titles that now surround his name, Adeoye Aribasoye’s story did not begin in the chambers of the Ekiti State House of Assembly. It did not begin with a law degree. It did not begin with politics. And it certainly did not begin with the privileges that are often associated with political power. Aribasoye will turn 50 in November 2026. Yet before reaching the age at which many people begin to settle into established careers, he had already travelled through several worlds.
He had been a student union leader. He had been a caretaker chairman of Ajoni Local Council Development Area. He had become a legislator.And he is now the Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly. But there was another chapter that seemed to me more revealing than the official biography.
At the age of 17, he left home and found himself confronting life without what he described as a solid foundation “Omo atapata dide”. There were no guarantees that the journey would lead to political prominence. There was no obvious indication that the young man negotiating the uncertainties of adulthood would eventually become a lawyer and one of the most prominent political figures in Ekiti State.
That was the very question I wanted to ask. How does a young man who left home at 17, worked ordinary jobs and struggled through the uncertainties of life eventually find his way into law, student leadership, politics and, ultimately, the Speaker’s seat of a state legislature?
It was this question that kept me waiting long after the speech had ended. I had other assignments to cover. But I decided to wait. After about an hour, Aribasoye finally came down from the podium.
THREE MINUTES THAT BECAME TEN
He joined the team of journalists at the red carpet session. I quietly told some of the other journalists around me that we should not allow the Speaker more than two or three minutes.
It was not disrespect. It was professional survival. Broadcast journalism has its mathematics. There is only so much space available for an interview in a news package. A reporter may spend several minutes interviewing a politician, but the final story may require only a few seconds of actuality.
Aribasoye, however, has a peculiar relationship with time when he has a microphone in front of him. He speaks with confidence and fluency. He does not appear to search desperately for words. His answers are usually structured around examples, explanations and arguments. Even when you want him to stop, what he is saying can be too useful to interrupt.
I therefore gave him a very specific instruction. Sir, one minute. Just one minute. It did not work.
Within minutes, he had moved beyond the question, illustrating his points with examples and drawing connections between his experiences and the wider issue of youth development. Ten minutes had passed before we realised that our one minute had disappeared.
At that point, I had to intervene. I politely asked him to summarise his points and list them so that the broadcast crew could manage the material. He obliged. The interview session ended. But the real conversation had only just begun.
FROM SIM CARDS AND CAR WASHES TO THE ASSEMBLY CHAMBERS
Now, I turned the conversation away from government programmes and political speeches. I wanted the man behind the office. He reminded people around of the different stages of his life that are rarely visible when people see him sitting in the Speaker’s chair.
“There was a time when this same Aribasoye worked as a sales boy in a supermarket. There was a time when he sold SIM cards in Ado Ekiti. There was also a period when he worked at a car wash, where he was placed on a permanent night shift, a routine that bore some resemblance to the duties of a night security guard.”
Then came student union leadership. Then advocacy. Then confrontation and dialogue with government. Then political office as caretaker Chairman of Ajoni LCDA. Then the legislature. And finally, the Speaker’s chair. But perhaps one of the most consequential episodes occurred in 2013.
As a student leader, Aribasoye wrote a memorandum to the administration of former Governor Kayode Fayemi, challenging the government over youth inclusion in governance. What appeared at the time to be a simple memorandum would later become part of a larger conversation about the place of young people in government in Ekiti State.
The state subsequently witnessed the appointment of Special Advisers responsible for youth development under successive administrations. Under the present administration of Governor Biodun Oyebanji, youth development has gone a step further with the creation of a dedicated ministry.
It was difficult not to look at that trajectory and wonder what happens to a person when the issues he once protested against eventually become part of the system he now belongs to. And so I asked him a question that was deliberately provocative.
I borrowed a word he had himself used earlier while addressing some of the dignitaries at the summit. He had called them “bourgeoisies”. Now, I turned the word back to him.
“You once described some people here as bourgeoisies. Today, you are yourself a prominent member of the political establishment in Ekiti State. You are a bourgeoisie. You have moved from the street, from ordinary jobs and student activism to becoming Speaker of the House. What has changed in you?”
Aribasoye did not hesitate. His response was remarkably simple. “Nothing,” he said, “except the status.” He paused briefly before continuing.
“NOTHING HAS CHANGED EXCEPT THE STATUS”
There was something striking about the simplicity of the answer. For a man whose circumstances had changed so dramatically, he did not describe himself as having become a different person. According to him, the position had changed, but the habits and principles that brought him there had remained largely intact.
“I have continued with the same energy,” he said. “You see, consistency is the key in life.” Then he began to explain what consistency meant to him. It was not merely about persistence in the conventional sense. For Aribasoye, consistency also meant continuous learning. “I still read wide, the way I have always read,” he said. He offered his experience in the House of Assembly as an example.
“When I first entered the legislature, I was appointed Chairman of the House Committee on Youth. For someone who had spent years advocating youth issues, the appointment appeared almost perfectly suited to my background”.
But Aribasoye did not assume that experience alone was enough. He went back to the books.
“When I got to the House of Assembly, I was given Chairman of the Committee on Youth. I read widely to know what was expected of me and the committee. I believed the committee needed more than a chairman who simply occupied the position. I wanted it to function. And I transformed it.” He said
But political and institutional responsibilities rarely remain static. He was later moved from the Committee on Youth to the Committee on Interparliamentary Affairs. On the surface, the transfer could have appeared like a setback. He had built knowledge and experience around youth affairs, only to be moved somewhere else. But Aribasoye interpreted the situation differently.
“Ordinarily, this would have discouraged me,” It did not.
Instead, I returned to my familiar strategy. I went back to the drawing board.
THE ART OF FINDING A SPACE
This was perhaps the most revealing part of our conversation. Aribasoye described the next stage of his journey as another exercise in learning.
He began studying the structure and template of the National Assembly. He examined how similar committees operated at the federal level and considered how some of those ideas could be adapted within the state legislature.
“I read the template of the National Assembly and again helped to activate the committee in the state,” But I did not stop there. From that experience came an initiative to establish a forum for chairmen of House Committees on Interparliamentary Affairs across Nigeria. And I became its pioneer chairman.”
For him, that experience captured a broader philosophy that had guided his life.
“It is about thinking outside the box,” he said. Then he made the point even more personal.
“It is about finding space for yourself. Add value to your life, then people will look for you. This is what I tell people. I am sure you know Tunji, My Younger Brother very well, He live with me for seventeen years.” He will also tell you.
The statement sounded less like political rhetoric and more like a distillation of his personal journey. A young man left home at 17. He took whatever work is available. He sold goods. He worked at a car wash. He studied. He became a student leader. He challenged government. He enters politics. He became a legislator. He studied the workings of the legislature. He built a committee. He is moved to another committee. He learnt again. He created a national forum.And eventually, he became Speaker. The thread connecting those seemingly disconnected chapters was not privilege. It was adaptation.
THE POLITICIAN AS A PERPETUAL STUDENT
Perhaps the strongest lesson from Aribasoye’s account is that political advancement, at least in his telling, was not simply a product of ambition. It was also a product of preparation. Each new position presented a new intellectual demand. Rather than seeing unfamiliar responsibilities as reasons to complain, he described them as invitations to learn.
That approach may explain why he appeared so comfortable moving from one institutional responsibility to another. It also provides a different way of understanding his sometimes lengthy speeches.
For the journalist trying to cut an interview into a 30 second broadcast clip, his ability to elaborate can be a nightmare. But behind the verbosity is something more consequential. A versed man who appears to have developed an almost compulsive need to explain.
He reads. He studies. He connects one experience to another. He illustrates. He argues.And he continues. Perhaps that is why interrupting him can feel like stopping someone in the middle of a thought that has not yet reached its destination.
BACK TO THE HALL
Our conversation eventually ended. I walked Aribasoye back into the auditorium. Inside, the atmosphere had changed. The formal speeches were over, but the Speaker had not left the young people behind. He continued answering questions. He spoke with participants. He offered advice. He listened. And he mentored.
Watching him interact with the young people after spending considerable time listening to his personal story, I found myself returning to the question that had kept me waiting outside the auditorium earlier.
What exactly transforms a 17 year old boy with no obvious roadmap into a lawyer, student leader, political activist, legislator and eventually Speaker of a state parliament?
There may be several answers. Circumstance. Opportunity. Politics. Education. Luck. But Aribasoye’s own answer is simpler. Consistency, keep learning, find your space an add value. And perhaps, above everything else, refuse to allow the position you eventually occupy to erase the person you once were.
As he disappeared back into the crowd of young people inside the auditorium, the image that stayed with me was not that of the Speaker of the Ekiti State House of Assembly. It was the image of the young man who once had to find his way through the streets, jobs and uncertainties of ordinary life. Then again another question. Would the Participants at the event really take sermon from Aribasoye’s trajectory and take him serious? Someone Somewhere is also an Aribasoye of tomorrow.
The title came much later. The journey came first.
